1999 Volkswagen Beetle problems
Owners have filed 280 complaints with NHTSA about the 1999 Volkswagen Beetle. Electrical system is the most reported problem area, at 18% of complaints. Next are engine (12%) and wipers, windshield & visibility (10%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 280 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Electrical system 18% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 19 and 28
- Injuries and deaths
- 19 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 58,000 miles 101 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 16 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 14 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 25 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 13 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 9 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 10 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 10 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 1 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 1 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 1 |
| 200k+ miles | 1 |
What the data shows
Of the 101 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 58,000 miles. For electrical system specifically, the median reported mileage is about 71,000 miles (20 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 19 complaints mention a crash; 28 complaints mention a fire; 19 injuries reported. Its complaints are more severe on average than those of 81% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 1999 ranks 5th most-complained-about out of 18 model years of the Volkswagen Beetle with enough data (155 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 1 safety recall campaign.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
Is there any way to find out if the previous owner of this vehicle had problems with the airbags. We bought this car for our 18 year old twin daughters with saftey in mind. We really need your help on this. Please contact us. Thank you.
Consumer complaint is that the side air bag on his vehicle failed to deploy when another vehicle hit the drivers side at approximately 15 MPH. Consumer was traveling forward at approximately 50 to 60 MPH. A pick-up truck hit consumer's car broadside on driver's side, an engineer at VW claims stated that the forward motion of vehicle lessened the side impact enough that the air bag did not activate. *slc
On dec. 9th, 2000, our beetle was hit in the drivers side and side airbags did not deploy. "experts" at volkswagen claimed that our forward motion at the time of impact lessened the side impact. I can understand this to some degree but by their reasoning, if we were going twice as fast, would the damage have been halved? Oy. The side was so caved-in that I had to be cut out of the car with the jaws of life.
Purchased 1999 VW beetle 20 months ago. Car has only 54,000 miles. Since owning the car have already over $3,500 in repairs. All of the repairs were done at my local darcar VW repair shop. I believe some of these repairs were recalls and have all receipt. Is there someone I can sent my repair receipts to to see if I can be reimbursed for out of pocket expenses which should have been recall services? I can forward receipts.
My car- 1999 VW beetle was not fully inspected before I got the car from dealer. I just found out that my car has long list of parts need replacement to repair and I felt that it wasn't real safe because of strut shock and power steering also cv joints are getting bad in the under of hood. I found out that my car has no panel skid for prevent from wetting on motor parts and got bad acid on it. I has to order the parts for my car and hasn't driven for almost 6 months by so far.